[yonif]

More Points from the Article

1. Nasa Did not make any effort to investigate the outside of the ship for serious damage, even after seeing that panel fall on the wing. They could have used a telescope or a spy satellite to do so.

2. Therefore the shuttle could have flown to the space station and waited there for another shuttle

3. Repeat that the Columbia crew was not told of the problems, so they had no chance to investigate or try to fix them (A BIG THING)

4. Correction: The pic is a still photo from the press conference Israel had where the Prime Minister Sharon had a talk with the Israeli astronaut. This photo was revealed on Israel Television the other day.

[RaceBannon]

they had no way to fix it either. To bond that stuff you need a warm room, vacuum wrap the material, and use an epoxy that flows in room heat, not absolute zero of space.

I say, they didnt tell them, there was no way anyone could have stopped it, fixed it, and they knew it was up to God to get them home again alive either way.

I am not sure if that is evil. Why make them worry? There was NOTHING they could do about it.

[SwinneySwitch]

"Repeat that the Columbia crew was not told of the problems, so they had no chance to investigate or try to fix them (A BIG THING)"

Whoever took this picture out the window was aware of potential problems!

[RadioAstronomer]

2. Therefore the shuttle could have flown to the space station and waited there for another shuttle

Nope. the Delta-V was to great for the onboard fuel. It could not reach the ISS.

[John Valentine]

One by One:

Point One:

There was no effective way to view the underside of the shuttle wing from Earth or any space-based vantage point.

Point 2:

There was no fuel on board to take the shuttle to the ISS. The orbits of the shuttle and the ISS were not compatible. If the shuttle were to be able to rondevoux with the ISS it would have had to be programmed to do so from the start.

Even if the shuttle could have flown to the ISS, it could not link up since the docking module was not carried aboard, as it was not needed and was unusable for this mission.

Point 3:

The Columbia crew had no ability to either investigate or fix. Information would hvve been useless to them. They do not carry aboard the thoushands of different tile shapes and sizes needed to replace any given broken tile. Nor do they carry along the EVA suits unless the mission contemplates such activity. The crew could not go out into the vacuum of space, did not carry repair materials, and could not see the underside of the wing.

Point 4:

I cannot tell exactly what is depicted in this photograph. But I can tell you that it is not the wing. The left shuttle wing is not visible from the cockpit.

This entire article is written with a disregard for research into the facts. It is in the class of "3,000 year old mummy gives birth to healty baby boy," and is deserving of no more credence.

[isthisnickcool]

Nice big bold print you have there pardner. Unfortunately, they could not go to the IIS and they could not check or replace any of the tiles.

Let me clue you in on some things. Some things I know for a fact after being around people like Chris Kraft since I was very young. The people that work for NASA would not leave those people in the dark over anything they thought might put them in danger. It just is not done. It would not have been allowed. It is not an option. What kind of pu$$ys do you imagine are involved here?

If the taggers thought that there was a serious problem they would have told the crew. And there would not be some NASA suit telling them to do otherwise. That would not work anyway.

[Swordmaker]

1. Nasa Did not make any effort to investigate the outside of the ship for serious damage, even after seeing that panel fall on the wing. They could have used a telescope or a spy satellite to do so.

2. Therefore the shuttle could have flown to the space station and waited there for another shuttle

3. Repeat that the Columbia crew was not told of the problems, so they had no chance to investigate or try to fix them (A BIG THING)

The following is part of a post I left on another thread about the shuttle disaster in which a lot of this has already been discussed in detail. I constructed a decision tree based on the situation that NASA may have struggled with:

Previous Shuttle Thread

-------------------

Let us do a "what if" hypothetical.

Let us suppose NASA did suspect a problem with the left wing tiles. They knew they did not have the equipment on STS-107 to do an inspection, either remotely or personally. In addition, the information would be of little use in landing the Shuttle. One way or the other the tiles are either OK or they are not. Knowing which cannot change the re-entry methodology because flying the Shuttle is "like flying a gliding brick" as one early shuttle pilot put it. Because of the volatile supersonic flight characteristics of the Shuttle, it can only safely be handled by a pre-programed computer auto-pilot until the final landing stages. Therefore no "seat of the pants" flight manuevers would or could keep stress off of the left wing and prevent the disaster. Now, assuming this suspicion that the wing tiles are damaged, NASA's managers are faced with a decision: either they leave the shuttle and crew in orbit or they bring them home.

If they leave it in orbit the astronauts have only a few more days of life left. It is inevetible that they will die from asphixiation or CO2 poisoning when either system runs out or fails. Meanwhile, down on Earth NASA is faced with a public relations nightmare. Citizens, nations, families, and not least, politicians demand that SOMETHING BE DONE! But NASA knows they have no assets that can reach the doomed astronauts in time. Sad and pitiful pleadings from loved ones and stoic, resigned brave astronauts are contrasted with "do nothing" NASA administrators. In the end, the nation has a derelict space craft and seven dead astronauts in orbit and NASA has received a blackeye for inaction and mismanagement that may not be recoverable. This scenario is a LOSE-LOSE situation.

Altermately, they bring the shuttle home with two possible outcomes:

1: If the tiles are only minimally damaged, the shuttle lands, NASA managers quietly solve the falling insulation problem and everything is great. NASA WINS!

22: If the tiles are NG, the shuttle disintegrates on re-entry, the Astronauts are killed instantly with no suffering, no drawn out PR nightmare, and no accusations of NASA inaction in efforts to save them. The nation mourns its dead heroes, NASA mounts an investigation, finds the problem and fixes it to the acclaim of Congress who rewards them with added funding for shuttle maintanence. NASA DOESN'T LOSE... and in some ways NASA WINS.

Given this hypothetical, that NASA and the astronauts knew there was a potential problem, there is only one logical choice: Bring the astronauts and shuttle home, at least there is a 50-50 chance of the astronauts surviving. The option of leaving them in orbit is a guaranteed loser... the result is seven dead astronauts. The astronauts ONLY CHANCE was to de-orbit and risk re-entry. They took the only chance they had... and, sadly, they lost.

Bringing them home was a WIN-WIN for NASA in this cynical hypothetical case. Thank God, I am not cynical.

[Alberta's Child]

It has been reported widely over the last couple of days that there was no way the shuttle could have docked with the International Space Station. For one thing, such a docking requires a special module to be brought along on the shuttle (the Columbia did not bring it). Also, because of some other issue the Columbia was incapable of docking with the ISS under any circumstances on any flight. I believe the Columbia (because it was the oldest shuttle) was too heavy to be launched to the altitude that was necessary for a docking with the ISS.

[Tennessee_Bob]

1. Nasa Did not make any effort to investigate the outside of the ship for serious damage, even after seeing that panel fall on the wing. They could have used a telescope or a spy satellite to do so.

Errr...which telescope? Ground based or the Hubble? A spy satellite? No - I don't think either of those would work.

2. Therefore the shuttle could have flown to the space station and waited there for another shuttle

Depends on the fuel load that they had on board (at least according to another post). They were in a different orbit than the ISS, and would have had to make a major burn of fuel that they didn't have in order to reach it (at least, according to one of the many posts).

3. Repeat that the Columbia crew was not told of the problems, so they had no chance to investigate or try to fix them (A BIG THING)

Reckon it's possible that the ground guys did see the unknown item (ice, insulation, what-have-you) fall at launch - as has happened before - and determined that it was nothing of major concern? Granted, at this point, they're looking at everything.

4. Correction: The pic is a still photo from the press conference Israel had where the Prime Minister Sharon had a talk with the Israeli astronaut. This photo was revealed on Israel Television the other day.

Meaning? That this really isn't a picture of the leading edge of the left-hand wing, and it's quite possible that this newspaper is engaging in what every other media outlet is doing - hypothesizing about something that they really don't know anything about??

Nah - couldn't be...

[deport]

4. Correction: The pic is a still photo from the press conference Israel had where the Prime Minister Sharon had a talk with the Israeli astronaut. This photo was revealed on Israel Television the other day.

Who took the picture? Where was it taken from? By whom?

[Arkinsaw]

1) The spy satellites and telescopes were not at all helpful the last time they tried. There was no way to examine the underside of the wing.

2) No it couldn't have

3) They could not have investigated or fixed it anyway.

Hysteria

[plain talk]

Thanks for your info. Telescope or spy satellite? Hmm? It's already been stated that they couldn't dock with the space station and couldn't repair the tiles in space. Once again I get a bit weary of all this amateur second guessing going on here.

[KingPin]

The space shuttle could NOT have flown to the space station. As this sensational article suggests. NASA addressed this yesterday saying that this was not option because they did not have an airlock on board required to dock to the space station. Furthermore, they could not have even attempted a space walk because 1) there were no spare tiles, and 2) no one on board had trained for a space walk and they were not equipped for a space walk.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

2. Therefore the shuttle could have flown to the space station and waited there for another shuttle

Incorrect. The Columbia was not in an orbit high enough on this mission to be able to reach the ISS. They did not have sufficient fuel for that type of course change.

[RightWhale]

the shuttle could have flown to the space station

Is that what somebody is saying?

It's not true. The Space Shuttle didn't have enough delta-vee remaining to rendezvous with the ISS.

[nonliberal]

Reports today are that there was not enough fuel on board to make it to the space station. Even if they could have, Columbia was not equipped with a docking ring so they could not have docked anyway.

None of the astronauts on board could have made the repair as 1) there was nothing to hang on to and they could have gone tumbling into space, and; 2) They were not trained to make repairs of that nature.

[Adder]

"1. Nasa Did not make any effort to investigate the outside of the ship for serious damage, even after seeing that panel fall on the wing. They could have used a telescope or a spy satellite to do so."
___________________________________________________________
My understanding was that NASA did investigate the "damage" and concluded there was no damage. The second part of the statement indicates a serious lack of understanding on the part of the article writer.
Everyone wants answers NOW but this type of reporting is simply irresponsible.

[Wil H]

The Shuttle could NOT have flown to the Space Station and awaited another shuttle as Columbia had no docking ring to effect a personnel transfer. The claim is totally bogus.